A deterrence theory of punishment

Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 53, Issue 212, 2003, Pages 337-351

  Ellis, Anthony ^a  

^a VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 4444300034     PISSN: 00318094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9213.00316     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. Tony Honoré, Responsibility and Fault (London: Hart, 1999), p. 19.
2. This is the position of H.L.A. Hart (or one of his positions): see Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), ch. 1.
3. Cf. P. Montague, Punishment as Societal-Defense (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), p. 91.
4. Warren Quinn also used this idea in a discussion of punishment: see 'The Right to Threaten and the Right to Punish', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 14 (1985), pp. 327-73.
5. Daniel Farrell has shown that Quinn's argument rests upon a premise which is false: see 'On Threats and Punishments', Social Theory and Practice, 15 (1989), pp. 125-54.
6. The idea that punishment can be justified as a form of self-defence has also been defended by Montague (see Punishment as Societal-Defense), and by Farrell: see, for instance, 'Deterrence and the Just Distribution of Harm', Social Philosophy and Policy, 12 (1995), pp. 220-40, and 'On Threats and Punishments'.
7. There is, of course, an immense and ancient literature to which I cannot here do justice on the logic of the intentions embedded in threats. For a relevant discussion, see Farrell, 'A New Paradox of Deterrence', in J.L. Coleman and C.W. Morris (eds), Rational Commitment and Social Justice: Essays for Gregory Kavka (Cambridge UP, 1998), pp. 22-46.
8. George P. Fletcher, A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial (New York: Free Press, 1988), p. 29.
9. Since 1973 'At least 96 people have been exonerated and freed from death rows in 22 states' (The New York Times, August 24th, 2001).
10. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility, p. 128. (Hart thinks that this is a 'fallacy'.)
11. we find in jurisprudential thought just what we should expect, given this aim. But for a different approach, see Duff, Criminal Attempts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
12. Duff has tried to explain the puzzle in Criminal Attempts. I have criticized Duff's argument in my 'Criminal Attempts', Journal of Applied Philosophy, 15 (1998), pp. 207-12.